RBC Wealth Management has strengthened its London-based Eastern Europe desk, which was established close to a year ago, with the addition of Tanya Blazhko and Nathalie Gorshkova as directors.

Blazhko and Gorshkova, who report to Philip Harris, head of UK private clients, have been charged with expanding RBC Wealth Management’s reach into the Eastern European markets, including the CIS region.

Blazhko joins from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where she had been vice president, structured products and derivatives on the firm’s emerging markets/CIS desk – a role which included marketing structured tailored solutions for her clients across asset classes, and managing senior client relationships.

Gorshkova, meanwhile, was latterly a senior relationship manager at BNP Paribas Wealth Management, working with both high and ultra high net worth clients in the CIS region.

RBC Wealth Management has been hiring across the regions in recent times, but Asia has been high on the agenda recently. Earlier this month Lionel Choi was named as a private client director in RBC Wealth Management Singapore-based trust office, while this week the firm outlined plans to acquire asset managers in Asia with the aim of more than doubling its relationship manager headcount by 2015.